ildren too, and had politely to withdraw my
invitation. The gardener and I then made a luscious compound of bacon
grease and rough-on-rats, which we served on lettuce leaves and left
about the edges of the grass plot. Did you ever hear a rabbit scream?
They do. I felt like Lucretia Borgia, and decided that if they wanted
the lawn they could have it. Oddly enough, a lot of grass came up in
quite another part of the garden. I suppose it was the first planting
that Fraeulein had blown away with the hose! We often have surprises like
that in gardening. We once planted window-boxes of mignonette and they
came up petunias--volunteer petunias at that. Of course, it all adds to
the interest and adventure of life.

After the water-pipes were laid the gas deserted us, and we had a few
meals cooked on all the little alcohol lamps we could muster. Then the
motor fell desperately ill, and from then on was usually to be found
strewed over the floor of the garage. Jerome K. Jerome says about
bicycles, that if you have one you must decide whether you will ride it
or overhaul it. This applies as well to motors. We decided to overhaul
ours with a few brief excursions, just long enough to give an
opportunity for having it towed home. One late afternoon we were
hurrying across the mesa to supper, when our magneto flew off into the
ditch, scattering screws in all directions. Fortunately, a kind of
Knight Errant to our family appeared just in the nick of time to take us
home and send help to the wreck. I once kept a garage in San Diego open
half an hour after closing time by a Caruso sob in my voice over the
telephone, while my brother-in-law's miserable chauffeur hurried over
for an indispensable part.

Poppy, the cow, contributed her bit--it wasn't milk, either--to this
complicated month, but deserves a chapter all to herself.

The backbone of the family found my letters "so entertaining" at first,
but gradually a note of uneasiness crept into his replies after I had
told him that Joedy had fallen out of the machine and had just escaped
our rear wheels, and that the previous night we had had three
earthquakes. I had never felt an earthquake before, and it will be some
time before I develop the nonchalance of a seasoned Californian, whose
way of referring to one is like saying, "Oh, yes, we did have a few
drops of rain last night." One more little tremble and I should have
gathered the family for a night in the garden.

After an incendi